Machines for automatic cutting of sheet material (cloth, skins, paper, . . . ), generally comprise a working table on which material to be cut is stacked, a film that is impervious to air that covers the stack of material, a suction means that holds the stack of material down on the table by suction, and a moving cutting tool that moves over the stack. For optimization purposes, the working table may itself be constituted by a conveyor that constitutes a support surface and that is also designed to transfer the stack.
It happens that some users of such machines need to cut sheets of width that are smaller than the working width of the cutting machine, or sheets that are of standard width but folded in two. During such cutting, a large portion of the cutting table is not covered in material, however the impervious film must nevertheless cover the entire cutting zone in order to provide the sealing necessary for the stack-holding suction. By proceeding in this way, half of the impervious film is used up needlessly, and that is quite wasteful.
An object of the present invention is to solve these drawbacks in a satisfactory manner.